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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23362165">Plus</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/OxfordOctopus/pseuds/OxfordOctopus'>OxfordOctopus</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>OxfordOctopus' Snips'n'Snaps [29]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Bleach, Parahumans Series - Wildbow</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Morally Ambiguous Character, Post-Gold Morning, Post-Golden Morning (Parahumans), Renji? Who's that, Taylor's Not Okay</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 11:14:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,614</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23362165</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/OxfordOctopus/pseuds/OxfordOctopus</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Slipping through the cracks between worlds following getting shot twice in the head, Taylor wakes up in Soul Society and firmly decides that she'll try to change things from the inside this time, that she'll work with the system, with those in power, to hopefully fix things as they come.</p><p>It's never that easy.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kuchiki Rukia &amp; Kurosaki Ichigo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>OxfordOctopus' Snips'n'Snaps [29]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1435474</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>100</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Plus</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>sorry if this isn't the most tonally consistent piece of work i've written? i just wanted to write something, and got kinda hyped that they're going to finish the bleach anime, even if this last arc is even worse than the bount filler arc lmao</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Resisting the urge to itch at the limiter stamped into the space just above her collarbone, Taylor kept her gaze fixed on the gradually-opening doors of the Senkaimon. It would be her first time back to the human world since she’d died, which at this point was somewhere in the realm of... <em>christ</em>, close to seventy years ago? Not that she’d be stepping out into the 2080s or anything, her death had been such a clusterfuck she’d managed to get thrown into the past and into another dimension in the process, but...</p><p>Shutting her eyes, Taylor took in a breath, ignoring the way the seal fluttered restlessly against her skin. She hated feeling like this, hated the bloat the seal forced on her, a razor-thin nausea that made her teeth itch. She understood <em>why</em> she had to wear the damn thing, she was a beacon for hollows without it and ran the very real risk of causing humans with small amounts of spiritual sensitivity to drop dead if she got too close, but she still couldn’t quite ignore it and move on.</p><p>“Lieutenant Hebert,” Byakuya Kuchiki, the current head of a noble house that could ruin her politically <em>and</em> spiritually, given the opportunity, spoke up, glancing at her with thinly-veiled frustration. “If you aren’t well enough to be part of the retrieval team, please choose somebody else.”</p><p>Forcing a smile to her face that belied the impossibility of that task, Taylor didn’t meet his eyes. “I’m sorry, Captain, the seal is just... <em>unpleasant</em>.”</p><p>That, at least, gave him pause. “Why are they sending you, if you’re so unused to the limiter?”</p><p>Bastard. “Because I’m the best suited to retrieval and capture currently available, considering Abarai’s absence.”</p><p>Byakuya tried to shoot her a look, but being groomed by an overeager, subservient, and yet near-neurotic captain had rendered her close to immune to disapproving looks at this point. “Fair point,” he bit out, eyes glancing towards an approaching hell butterfly that had managed to slip through the widening crack in the Senkaimon.</p><p>Watching the Kido Corps continue with the ritual to open the damn thing, Taylor shifted onto her back foot. It was hardly fair to blame them for the stifled atmosphere between the two of them, but she was starting to wonder if someone had told them to take it slow with this opening because she had seen them open the damn thing quicker before. Maybe it had something to do with Karakura’s spiritual density?</p><p>God, fucking <em>Abarai</em>. He just <em>had</em> to pick up that assignment a day before they’d gotten those Menos sightings. He was due back in a week, and it was only Soifon’s own explicit refusal to let her hand the damn assignment off on someone else that she was stuck doing this. Not that she didn’t get the importance of dragging Rukia back to Soul Society, she was a Kuchiki and the Onmitsukidō was at least partially responsible for being the noble clans’ minders, but couldn’t they have sent Ōmaeda on this retrieval mission? He was the third seat, surely he’d be good enough.</p><p>...Okay, so maybe he wouldn’t be, on second thought. How had Ōmaeda even managed to <em>reach</em> third seat? Aside from nepotism, which could only really get you so far before people started asking questions.</p><p>Drawn from her thoughts by the dull, wooden <em>thunk</em> of the Senkaimon finally pulling itself fully open, Taylor spared her partner for the mission a look, lingering briefly on the hell butterfly that had come to rest on her shoulder. Byakuya started forward without another word, and Taylor made sure to follow, always keeping just far enough behind him that it wouldn’t be taken as a slight, not that she thought Byakuya <em>was</em> that petty. It was other people, the ones like Captain Soifon, who worried her, and the Kido Corps were flush full of them.</p><p>Travelling through the Senkaimon wasn’t nearly as unpleasant as she had expected it to be. It came down to being briefly blinded by a flash of light, hearing a vague bit of white noise, and then stepping out onto solid concrete with the sensation that your step just took just a <em>little</em> bit too long, that it was partially out of sync with things. When the spots faded from her eyes, she was met with... well, normal looking Japanese suburbia from the early 2000s.</p><p>It was almost disappointing.</p><p>“This is where the compass led to?” Taylor found herself asking before she could stop herself, getting an odd look from Byakuya, who had quietly come to a stop a few paces ahead of her.</p><p>“Yes,” he said after a moment, his form rising slowly, pulling him into the air without friction. Taylor did the same, the short burst of vertigo from the flight-but-not-flight that hadn’t come quite so naturally to her making her stomach twinge unpleasantly. “You didn’t read the scouting report?”</p><p>Ah. That sounded like criticism. “I didn’t have time to,” she reminded, floating along after him, her sword feeling heavier against the side of her hip, weighted in a way it normally wasn’t. <em>Fucking limiter</em>. “This wasn’t supposed to be my job.”</p><p>Byakuya nodded, apparently accepting her answer.</p><p>Pulling further and further into the air, Taylor couldn’t help but feel her heart give an unwelcome clench. There was a lot she didn’t - couldn’t - recognize going on below her - Japanese cities had always been notoriously dense in population and even the smaller towns like Karakura were both structured and designed in a way that just <em>wasn’t</em> what she remembered from her past life - but it was achingly familiar and something she hadn’t really been sure if she’d ever see again.</p><p>At least this world only had monsters people couldn’t see.</p><p>“She’s down there,” Byakuya’s voice called out, startling Taylor back into focus. Sure enough, there was either Rukia’s identical twin or a gigai down there made to look like her. She’d never really understood why they did that - at least give her red hair or something, it would hide her existence better - but, then again, she probably shouldn’t complain about someone making a retrieval mission <em>easier</em> to complete. The less time she had with the limiter, the better.</p><p>Rotating on an axis, she spurred a burst of reiryoku down to her feet, gathering the energy, solidifying it. Shunpo had come surprisingly easy to her in the Academy, above even sword training, in part because it was <em>freeing</em>. Hell, half of the reason why she’d landed herself a seated position out of the Academy with the second division at <em>all</em> was because of her Shunpo grades.</p><p>Drawing Jooubachi from its sheathe - a foot-long tanto when sealed, simple and unassuming - Taylor glanced towards Byakuya, who was looking at her with cold, cold calculative eyes. His own emotions on the topic of his estranged niece were probably more complicated than he liked to make out, but then again he was part of the team bringing her back to be executed, so he probably didn’t get a say in the matter.</p><p>“Permission to engage, Captain?”</p><p>Byakuya nodded.</p><p>Taylor released the energy building in her feet in a <em>burst. </em>It was hard to explain how she’d known where she was going to end up, how the world didn’t quite speed down for her, and just that some part of Shunpo let people <em>speed up</em> to match the required reaction rate to use Shunpo with any level of versatility, but it just <em>worked</em>, at least in this case. One moment, she was dozens of feet above the ground, hanging weightlessly, a wraith in everything but name, and in the next she was on the ground in front of Rukia, weapon held to one side, staring her dead in the eyes.</p><p>Rukia, to her credit, didn’t flinch.</p><p>Breathing in, Taylor bit the inside of her cheek. “Rukia.”</p><p>The smile that came to her classmate’s face was fragile and brittle. “Taylor.”</p><p>“Sorry, but we have to bring you in,” she said, pushing back the flood of memories, of school and that stupid women’s association that Yachiru had cajoled one of the most terrifying women in Soul Society into supervising. “Captain Kuchiki has come along, he’s coming down now, please don’t resist.”</p><p>Rukia froze at that, limbs stiffening, horror sliding onto her face. It wasn’t like that was a substantial change to how she was normally - a lot of people had gotten it into their heads that Rukia was an emotionless Kuchiki drone, but in private she was significantly more unhinged, at least in her own experience - but there was something inherently more fragile in it, something that the Rukia she’d known before wouldn’t’ve ever shown, hadn’t shown since Kaien. Taylor wasn’t really sure if it was a good or a bad thing.</p><p>Then again, she’d be dead in seventeen days. Did it really matter?</p><p>Feeling it before she saw it, Taylor jerked back a step, blue energy flitting through the space where she had just been; a bullet of condensed reishi, if the way the energy felt against her skin was any indication, slamming into the concrete a few paces off to her left with little effect. Turning her head, Taylor caught sight of the attacker: a gawky, black-haired, glasses-wearing, stereotypical Japanese high schooler, a little taller than the average, and with both arms wrapped tightly in bandages, but otherwise impressively plain looking, if you ignored the massive bow made out of energy anchored to his right hand.</p><p>“Abducting an unarmed woman?” The boy asked, head tilted to one side. “That’s rather stereotypical of you, isn’t it Shinigami?”</p><p>Was that a fucking <em>Quincy</em>? Glancing at Byakuya, just to make doubly sure, and not bothering to placate his enfeebled, noble fucking heart with the placid, subservient face most people wore in his presence, Taylor flicked her eyes towards him a few times, trying to impart the very same question she was thinking. Byakuya, to his credit, didn’t look entirely off his own feet, but there was a steel in the back of his gaze, a clench in his jaw, that belied a similar sentiment.</p><p>“Uryuu?” Rukia asked, because <em>of course</em> she would know what might very well be <em>the last remaining Quincy on the planet</em>. “What are you doing here?”</p><p>“Pure chance,” Uryuu was quick to confide, as though he was trying to cover his own ass. “It’s midnight and I wanted to go to the 24/7 clothing franchise”—and the next few English words to slip out of his mouth were butchered in a way only a Japanese teenager could butcher them—“<em>Sunflower Tailor</em>, and the closest place was this neighborhood.”</p><p>Wait, rea—</p><p>“Actually, I felt the presence of a Shinigami nearby so I had to come out. I used my brain, of course. I had to be inconspicuous, so I purposefully brought this bag with me.”</p><p>Oh, okay, so he was just actually trying to cover his own ass.</p><p>Breathing out loud enough to get everyone’s attention back onto her, Taylor brandished Jooubachi quietly. There wasn’t any room for theatrics or comedy, at least not now. “Are you going to try to stop us?” She asked, finally finding her voice again.</p><p>“Wait!” Rukia cut in, looking on the edge of panic. “This guy has nothing to do with it, okay? Just leave him alone!”</p><p>“I will,” Uryuu said, nearly speaking over Rukia, who shot him a borderline hostile look. The bow around his hand <em>twitched</em>, a veritable shift in pressure as it seemed to widen and thicken, growing more dense, becoming more and more dangerous. “I won’t just let you abduct my classmate.”</p><p>The first thing you learned in basic training for the Onmitsukidō - because, no, you <em>aren’t</em> free once you’re out of the Academy, at least not with Soifon - was that grandstanding would and could kill you. Grandstanding was an unhealthy but prevalent habit among the Shinigami, driven by pride and hubris, largely buoyed by the fact that, to an extent, Shinigami <em>were</em> special. They had power, spiritual swords, and a caste system meant to protect and justify their existence.</p><p>So, in the end, Taylor didn’t give any of it a fair shake. Shunpo came to her easily, the ground cratering with the burst of pressure and speed, her limiter writhing against her eagerness, stretching against the flow of reiryoku flooding through her bones. She covered the distance too quick, quicker than Uryuu could reasonably predict, though Rukia’s scream, aborted mid-way, terrified and guilty, would haunt her more than the horrified eyes of a boy she just stabbed in the stomach ever would.</p><p>Uryuu stumbled back, clutching the opened rip in his belly. His body was shaking, the reishi around his hand flickered and dulled, peeling away. Taylor brought her leg up again, jammed the toe of her foot into the wound, spurned a scream of pain out of a teenager she had no feud with, no real reason to hate or hurt. Like Rukia he was just another victim, another target.</p><p>Hunched over, jamming Jooubachi into the side of Uryuu’s head was as easy as breathing. The boy slumped, boneless but not dead, bleeding out through his fingers as he twitched and stirred against the concrete, mostly unconscious.</p><p>“Is this fine?” Taylor asked, not looking back at Byakuya. Her fingers tensed around Jooubachi, the urge to use it, to <em>hurt</em>, vibrating against the back of her skull.</p><p>“No,” Byakuya said cooly, voice distant, almost harsh. “Finish him.”</p><p>Taylor shut her eyes, flipped Jooubachi around in her hand, brandishing it blade-down. She brought her arm back, sliding her eyes open up just a crack, just enough to see her target - the back of his neck - only for something else to hit her, something heavy enough to send her skidding across the ground, an ache spilling into the muscle of her arm.</p><p>Looking up, Taylor was met with the enraged face of a ... well, calling him ‘ginger’ wouldn’t be right. Jooubachi, at least in her spirit world, was <em>ginger</em>, ginger like Emma, with long hair and supple features, but with a cast to her skin that was entirely Irish. This boy? He was closer to orange <em>soda</em> in terms of color, bright and jarring, almost hard to keep looking at for any length of time. It absolutely had to be dyed, which raised several questions, like where he got dyes which would work for a <em>spirit form</em> of all things.</p><p>Her other question was, and <em>seriously</em>, what the <em>fuck</em> was that sword. It looked <em>comical</em>, it was vaguely claymore shaped, but with a very distinctly Japanese hilt and guard, and it was at least as tall as the kid himself was, which was at least five nine. Glancing down at her own blade, Taylor felt an odd burst of pithy annoyance; hers didn’t even qualify as a <em>sword</em>, even if it was a Zanpakuto.</p><p>How much reiatsu did the kid even <em>have</em>?</p><p>“Ichigo!” Rukia called out, and this time her voice was... longing? No, not quite, desperate. Fearful. Terrified. At her, in all likelihood, not that Taylor could blame her.</p><p>“Are you the one who Rukia gave her powers to?” Taylor found herself asking, rolling her shoulder uncomfortably, working through the awkward kinks in the muscle that taking the blow had left her with. The limiter was straining against her now, she wanted to scrape it off with her nails, take the skin with it.</p><p>“Yeah, so?” Ichigo - she was assuming, anyway - said with the exact sort of impolite tone she’d been expecting from someone who dyed their hair that color of orange. “You’re not taking her away, you know? I’ll stop you before you can.”</p><p>Glancing warily at Byakuya, who was looking at Ichigo with barely-concealed hatred, Taylor let out a sigh. Now she had to stop him from blowing his top and getting them <em>both</em> infracted, great. “Captain?”</p><p>Byakuya turned to her sharply, his rage obvious and felt. No matter how much he probably tried to conceal it, at least with someone who was <em>used</em> to looking for tells, for sensing the quaver of reiatsu that radiated out from people, it was nearly impossible to miss. “<em>What</em>.”</p><p>“Permission to activate my shikai?”</p><p>Byakuya paused, then. It was a short pause, barely noticeable, but something in his body unclenched, uncoiled like the wandering tail of a snake. Most people didn’t have to ask for permission to release their shikai, even with limiters, but because of how her power manifested, it sort of <em>worked around</em> the limiter and ran the risk of causing extra problems if she wasn’t careful. Sure, she could release it in an emergency while in the human world, but this wasn’t one yet, and she was pretty sure putting her agency in his hands had just stopped him from losing his head.</p><p>After taking a steadying breath, Byakuya looked her dead in the eyes, the sort of forceful, downwind stare that would make your average person quail. Taylor barely twitched.</p><p>“Granted.”</p><p>“Ichigo!” Rukia screamed this time, loud and desperate. He turned to her, confusion writ on his face. “Run!”</p><p>“What? N—”</p><p>“<strong>Reign</strong>,<strong> Jooubachi</strong>.”</p><p>It was nice to release her power. Her seal just about shattered against the pressure as her reiatsu naturally shifted, sucked back in towards her, crystallizing as it grew closer to her blade. Her weapon was longer, not as long as Ichigo’s by a country mile, a style of Polish sword called a <em>Koncerz</em>, though hers was shorter - only 37 inches - and had a cutting edge along the blade, unlike most. It was mostly black, with golden accents along the handle, looking almost like ornate vines, with small little barbs sticking up from the surface.</p><p>She loved it. She had found <em>peace</em> in it, and at this point, it was probably necessary. Dragging this out any further ran the very real risk of attracting hollows and other undue influences, and for all that she was pretty sure the guy bleeding out on the concrete right now was, in fact, the last Quincy or at least close to it, the last thing <em>she</em> needed to deal with was the sudden reveal of a cell of sleeper Quincy agents. She’d get in so much endless shit for it, not to even begin with the paperwork.</p><p>Everyone was looking at her now, and she took another second to revel in it. Oh, it was unhealthy to do so, but accepting herself had been part of earning the right to call Jooubachi’s name, at least partially. She still had a way to go, she thought, but for this, at least, she could accept. She enjoyed the theatre, she enjoyed the dominance, the feeling of superiority and control that her past life had lacked.</p><p>“You guys really name your swords?” Ichigo asked, sounding put-off by the idea. Taylor ignored the flush of frustration that came from the back of her head. “How d’ya do it?”</p><p>Was... was he really asking for advice. At this time. In this place</p><p>Levelling the tip of her weapon at Ichigo, Taylor drew her reiatsu in and her reiryoku out, the spiritual energy crystallizing, hardening into shiny gold flecks which swarmed around the tip of her blade, condensing sluggishly, working against the limiter when it would’ve taken less than a second without.</p><p>“Sting,” she whispered, almost a plea. The beam of crystalized reiatsu shot forward, a blink of light that Ichigo brought his weapon up to meet, only for it to split through his unwieldy, cumbersome weapon without resistance, then through the flesh of his body next. The blade splintered, cracks widening, spreading, before the top sixty percent of the blade fell away in pieces, leaving behind a hilt and some jagged metal.</p><p>Ichigo toppled, staggering as blood leaked down from the fist-sized hole in the center of his chest.</p><p>Rukia rushed forward, trying to catch him, only for Byakuya to cut her off, his hand coming to rest on her shoulder. She stopped mid-step, frozen, whether due to fear or due to pain - if the way Byakuya’s hand clenched around her shoulder was any indication - Taylor couldn’t be sure. “Retrieval complete,” Byakuya said, voice toneless, distant. “Lieutenant Hebert, stick around to clean up. I will be returning to Soul Society.”</p><p>“Er,” Taylor barely got a sound out before, with a nudge of his hand, the Kuchiki Senkaimon was sliding open.</p><p>Rukia started to struggle a bit, but let out a broken, pained noise when Byakuya clenched even harder. “He looks a lot like him,” Byakuya murmured, “but you can’t find redemption through him. Repent for your crimes, and Lieutenant Hebert will leave him alive.”</p><p>Rukia swallowed thickly, both audibly and visibly, before nodding meekly.</p><p>Byakuya turned back to her, eyes meeting hers from a distance away. There was something hollow in them, almost literally; he looked bordering on feral. “Do your job.”</p><p>Then he was gone, dragging Rukia through the opening of the Senkaimon, a butterfly trailing after them.</p><p>Ichigo writhed a bit on the ground, but apparently the gaping hole in his body stopped him from making a concerted effort at getting up. Uryuu was still on the ground, breathing steady, but still as unconscious as he had been when she’d put him down. The street was empty for the most part, aside from the steady leak of blood trickling down from the sidewalk, spilling onto the street with quiet <em>drip-drip-drips</em>.</p><p>Not being quite able to bring herself to urge her Shikai away, Taylor stepped forward from her place and started approaching Ichigo. She went through the few healing Kido they’d jammed into her head back when she’d first joined the second division - being the leader of the prisons came with some uncomfortable realities, after all - Taylor raised one hand, drawing out the very same sluggish reiryoku she had before, the seal only letting it leak instead of flow.</p><p>“Can you not?” Was, instead, what she was met with, just a breath before she was about to recite the words she knew would keep the boy alive. Glancing behind her, Taylor felt a grimace cramp across her face as she caught sight of a visage that was <em>genuinely</em> difficult to forget, in large part because his face and general demeanour had been forced into her head by Soifon after taking her role as her second-in-command.</p><p>“Your existence explains a lot, Urahara.”</p><p>Kisuke Urahara, assumed to be the mastermind behind the hollowification incident and Soifon’s embittered rival for the attention of the missing Yoruichi Shihōin, just smiled unpleasantly at her, all teeth, his one hand clutching the curled end of his cane, as though it was anything but his Zanpakuto. “Oho? You’ve heard of me?”</p><p>“Unfortunately. I was going to <em>heal</em> him, for the record.”</p><p>Kisuke’s eyes narrowed. “I know that symbol on your neck, you know? The Onmitsukidō doesn’t <em>heal</em>, especially not when they’re sending agents out with limiters.”</p><p>“I run the prison,” Taylor offered vaguely, drawing her focus back the gasping, retching Ichigo. He was going to die pretty soon; hell, it was a wonder he had lasted <em>this</em> long. Guy had a hole in his chest, was he subconsciously being healed by his own reiatsu? How would that even <em>work</em>?</p><p>“You’d be my Kouhai, then!” Kisuke continued, sounding nearly unhinged. Taylor ignored him, muttering the chant for Iyashikaze beneath her breath, forcing her reiryoku to respond, the surge of green washing over her hand, spilling between her fingers, leaping forward with a lurch, draining itself into the hole she’d carved into Ichigo’s body. Fatigue fluttered away in her stomach as she drained essential reserves, ever-aware of Kisuke’s eyes boring into the back of her head.</p><p>It became clear she’d healed Ichigo enough when he tried to stab her in the leg with the sharp fragments of his sword, Taylor stepping away. He coughed up blood a few times, spitting it out, trying to speak, and then repeating, but after a few cycles of doing so, he seemed to get the blood out of his throat if the way he started snarling at her was any indication.</p><p>“You bitch! You let them take her away!” Ichigo managed, struggling to his feet, Taylor wincing half in annoyance, half in sympathy as her hard work and reiatsu started to unwind itself. Iyashikaze was a powerful bit of healing Kido, but its simplicity and ease of use came at the cost of patching wounds up instead of fullying healing them. In a way, it was a bit like stitches; she’d healed the wound, yes, but if he tugged too hard or, say, took another swipe at her, he might reopen some of them and she, frankly, wasn’t powerful enough with the limiter to do it again.</p><p>“Can you handle the Quincy?” Taylor asked, keeping her eyes on Ichigo, knowing better than that. If Kisuke wanted her dead, he would kill her, that’s simply how it would work. She didn’t have the time to release her limiter, and even if she did, it wouldn’t matter; he was captain class, she fucking <em>wasn’t</em>. “I stabbed him in the stomach, it shouldn’t be too deep.”</p><p>“You were about to kill him before!” Ichigo screamed, and this time she had to stop herself from kicking him in the head. He was struggling to fully rise, wobbling, opening up wounds. Was this why Unohara was so terrifying? Was she the amalgamated hatred of every healer who watched some moron wander off with freshly-soothed wounds, only to get themselves torn apart? Was she starting to feel a bit loopy because of low reiryoku levels?</p><p>Probably.</p><p>“Of course!” Kisuke said, still sounding like he was having the time of his life.</p><p>Sticking her sword out, Taylor willed the connection with Soul Society to form, the odd feeling of a <em>click</em> echoing in her skull as her weapon sheathed itself into what seemed like open air, a shoji screen materializing shortly after. It began to slide open, the blinding white a bit harsher with the time of day, but it was nothing she couldn’t squint through.</p><p>“Why aren’t you stopping her?!” Ichigo demanded, drawing her gaze back to him. He was still on the ground, flanked by a curious black cat and Urahara both, the man in question keeping the flat of his palm to Ichigo’s back, a faint green glow rippling off his skin.</p><p>“Because it’s not worth it,” Taylor said quietly. “She’s going to die, Ichigo.”</p><p>“She’s <em>what?!</em>”</p><p>Oops.</p><p>Shutting her eyes and forcing a tired sigh out between clenched teeth, Taylor turned back to the Senkaimon. “She’s going to be executed, for what <em>you</em> took from her. She broke a rule, a big one, bigger than the one I’m breaking by not cutting the head off of your Quincy or reporting all of this to Soifon when I get back to the Soul Society.”</p><p>Ichigo gawped at her wordlessly, horror crawling over his features. In any other world, in any other place, he might’ve triggered there; she could tell he had a lot of emotions tied up in being helpless and unable to stop the death of someone important to him, not that he was particularly trying to hide it. But, then, he was riding on a power trip all the same, and he couldn’t really do anything to prevent things.</p><p>Even <em>she</em> couldn’t, and she held some level of sway in the system.</p><p>Stepping one foot into the Senkaimon, Taylor shut her eyes, forced her temper down, and reminded herself that taking over didn’t work last time, that she’d <em>promised</em> herself, one way or the other, that she’d fix the fucking problem from the inside this time.</p><p>It didn’t make her feel any better, hearing the door close behind her.</p>
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